


What is Life Without Death, and Vise Versa?

by safetypin



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7463619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safetypin/pseuds/safetypin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is life (He knows, he wants to live it).<br/>There is death (He knows, he constantly sees it).<br/>All he wants is feel human again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is Life Without Death, and Vise Versa?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a year or two ago, here's the note I wrote for it then:  
> A drabble written at twelve in the morning after I contemplated love and life for like, 30 min, while reminiscing in a recent breakup and argument with a life-long friend. It is cleaned up a bit so that it’s a bit easier to understand (I hope). Contains a few Greek mythology references. Probably pretty depressing.

Gone.   
This man was gone.  
Another life not saved.  
Another. Another. Another.   
What was the point really, of doing this, if not to save?

He could feel his teammate's collective guilt each time this happened. Really though, he couldn't help but feel them exaggerated. They didn't really know. It wasn't like they were the ones writing the cover up (well apart from their resident genius of course), and then cleaning up the remains of somebody’s daughter, son. Maybe a brother, a sister, a wife, a husband. Could have been a child’s mother, their father. No matter the what, they had been somebody to someone, and that makes them human. A friend, a cousin, a niece, a nephew, a granddaughter, a grandson. Something, someone, somewhere. They had a life, and now they didn’t. 

But here was the dreaded part; people die each day. That’s the natural order of it all, and it shouldn't be any other way. But to see them taken without being given a life to live first, that broke even the most concrete heart. The chance to smile again, to laugh one last time, that melted even the coldest of a western hemisphere's hearts. To thaw a frozen winter. But she is cruel.

He saw it each day. He cleaned it’s messes, and took the small scraps it gave him in return. Scraps like One, Lisa. But then life wanted them back for herself and left him with few choices, leaving him with Three. Some day, he supposes, with Jack. Maybe, not really, he can't quite be sure. 

Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Oh how cruel. What a major player, because she messes with everyone, and leaves them broken too.  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_  
Life. _(Death)_

And he only ever sees the end of it.   
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
The end, the release, the last “I give up.”   
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
Death. _(Life)_  
Take me Thanatos.   
Sweep me into your long black cloak and deliver me to Hades. 

But Euphrosyne returns from her slumber, and with her awakes her good-cheer, her joy. 

So on come the days where it all feels like too much to bear. 

But is it? Because let us awake inhibition. It shall grip you until you remember your humanity, and then release. It’ll release and leave you alive, very alive.

And it’ll leave you as one thing; human. 

Ianto Jones just wants to stay how he is. How Jack says no one can be after so long at Torchwood. _Human._


End file.
